VECTOR (The Weaver Series Book 3)

by Vaun Murphrey

  Once we were out of the building in the cool night air I gazed up at the stars and wondered with Silver what Kal and Mez were doing right now. My mentor had originally been on Earth to find an escaped criminal named Shiva, who had decided illegally to call our planet home. Our world was considered a backwater of uncivilized, barely developed, sentient life that enjoyed a certain degree of protection afforded by an alliance of already evolved planets which had a strict policy against interference.

  Shiva decided to make Silver and I his next bloody conquest when we disturbed his arrangement with a local Weaver serial killer named Calvin Harris who just happened to be the son of a Council member named Cora Harris. Cora was against any Weaver involvement with Outsiders, partly we guessed after the fact, because she had an inkling of what her son had been capable of but refused to turn him in. Once we became of interest to Shiva due to the manifestation of our Vector capabilities, Kal stepped in and took us to his home planet of Axsa to train us and remove us from harm’s way.

  There was no telling what Shiva had been up to during our absence, but he seemed to have been able to evade the replacement agent sent to take Kal’s place on Earth. As long as the deranged alien left our friends and family alone we would let the Axsian’s deal with his retrieval, but the minute he crossed the line into any territory we considered ours, my twin and I had decided we would hunt him down. Kal seemed to think Shiva would have lost interest in us by now, but the threat still lingered as a worry in the back of our mind.

  Malcolm closed the door at our back and walked up beside us with firm footsteps on the dusty ground, causing plumes of dirt to fly up and coat his tennis shoes with a fine orange tint. The moon was shining full and bright so every detail of the compound was sharp and crisp.

  Another Bender talent we had absorbed was the ability to see light outside of the normal human visible spectrum. The human eye could see far less of the electromagnetic spectrum than a Bender’s which made perfect sense, as one of their talents was bending light. Bright sunlight could be almost overwhelming if we didn’t shield our eyes or focus to dampen how much light they absorbed.

  Axsian’s had a nictitating membrane that protected their eyes from overexposure without limiting their ability to see, similar to what an owl might have on Earth, but Silver hadn’t figured out a way to grow us one yet.

  Malcolm cleared his throat. “Maybe we should wait until we get to your aunt and uncle’s house before I go into all of this. That’s some nifty trick you learned while you were away—popping in and out of sight first one place and then another…and what’s with the gloves and long coat in May?”

  Silver wrested control of our mouth away temporarily but left me in control of the walking which used to throw me off but now didn’t give me pause. “Oh I get it, you can ask questions but Cass and I can’t. Nice double standard you have going on here.”

  Malcolm held up his hands in mock surrender. “You can’t blame a man for having questions. I think I can already tell you two apart—one of you is much more of a smart ass than the other.”

  Silver replied, “Oh yeah? Well this smart ass just saved your head from being knocked off earlier, maybe next time we won’t bother. I’ll answer the question about the way we’re dressed because you need to know. Cass and I are contagious. I would have thought you already knew the answer considering your development of Prana and the way you pass it on to your students.”

  I got back control of our mouth and held up our gloved hands for Malcolm to see in the same mock surrender he used just moments ago, as we continued to make our way in between houses. No one here had bothered to repaint the dull blue flaking paint on most of the buildings and the compound was starting to look a little run down to us. Our enhanced vision could see every detail of the night and it was a relief to relax our eyes.

  “Maybe you’re right, Malcolm. We’ll save this talk for my aunt and uncle’s house. I do have another question though if you don’t mind?”

  His mouth ticked up at the corner in an almost half smile before he responded, “You can ask.”

  It wasn’t the first time we’d used that turn of phrase on one another but this moment in our lives was so much different. Five years might as well have been twenty years ago to Silver and I developmentally.

  “Why don’t you wear gloves? I would imagine not every Weaver wants to have the ability to move in short bursts of strength or speed. Not everyone is a fighter and it would be somewhat complicated if say…you touched a small child accidentally. I imagine Melody has more of an issue with it at the school than you do but still…you have to arrest Outsiders as a D.P.S. officer right? What if the gift can be passed on to the non-Weaver segment of the population?”

  Malcolm hitched the bag in his left hand as if the straps were bothering his palm before he said, “That’s more than one question, Dynamite. I can give you one answer that should clear up the whole thing though. Melody and I have to concentrate to will the ability to someone else. It wasn’t that way in the beginning, but then we could both feel it settle inside us as a river of energy that runs through our core and we haven’t accidently ‘gifted’ anyone with it for a long time. Maybe what you are will settle down someday, too.”

  Silver thought ominously, “What I feel in our future when I dream isn’t anything one would describe as settled.”

  We had a theory between the two of us that the reason for this recent change or increase in Weaver gifts portended a preparation for war, and if we were a major player in that unknown future then our gifts as a Vector would come in quite handy.

  Malcolm looked around at the quiet dirt streets and nodded hello to an older couple sitting in lawn chairs on their porch, sipping light brown liquid from frosted glass jars. I recognized the older gentleman as the mechanic from the garage where Malcolm had dropped off the Suburban we used to drive into Lubbock all those years ago.

  The man hadn’t changed a bit, his hair was white and thick, framing his round seamed face softly. One of his hands rose to wave my companion over and we noticed the fingernails were stained around the edges a deep black, as if the work of so many years as a grease monkey could never be washed away. We changed course in unison to walk over and stand in front of the older couple’s porch.

  Malcolm gave a nod with a deep, “Evening.”

  As we drew closer to the woman it became clear this was no married couple and most likely she was the mechanic’s mother.

  Silver thought, “What’s wrong with her?”

  The woman sat silently gazing off into the night. She didn’t seem to be all the way here, as if a piece of her mind was already gone and the frosted jar of brown liquid that I guessed was tea, rested on her blanket covered lap forgotten. Age couldn’t hide the graceful bones of her face, and the sagging skin around her jaw only accentuated her long thin neck. She reminded us of a slender graceful heron, patiently waiting to grab a fish under the surface of the water.

  When her eyes shifted suddenly to pin us with their intense regard, Silver and I almost gasped in unison. They were white in the center and black around the edges which threw the yellowed whites of her eyes in stark relief to our enhanced vision. She reached out a twisted arthritic hand to grab one of our gloved ones in an unbelievably strong grip, then pulled down until our faces were level.

  “You’re something, aren’t you little girl?” Her voice was tremulous and weak with an undercurrent of the strength it had once held in her younger years.

  All my twin and I could think was what came out of our mouth almost unbidden. “You’re quite something yourself.”

  We had an urge to pull away but it seemed rude so we waited for her grip on our gloved fingers to loosen. This close we could see her eyebrows were almost gone with only sporadic long white hairs to suggest where they had originally grown. Her fine, almost translucent, hair was pulled tightly back from her face.

  The old woman laughed in a booming way, totally defying the infirm cage of her body, exposing a mouth containing
pink gums and few teeth, then she sobered. “Don’t forget who you are along the way, Noemi Covarrubias’s granddaughters. Pay attention to your dreams—even if the answers aren’t the ones you want to hear.”

  As soon as the last words escaped from her thin lips, her mind went back to its half aware state and the almost painful grip on our gloved fingers released. I straightened from the hunched position her hold had forced on us. The man in the other lawn chair, Tim, our brain finally supplied, hurried to apologize.

  “Mom’s getting more and more like that lately. It just hasn’t been the same for her since my dad died last month. I imagine she’ll fade soon. I’m sorry if she upset you.” Tim’s expression reflected the mourning to come.

  The first time Maggie had shared the phenomenon of fading with me in the Web it had made me flabbergasted and angry that a person would choose to die when they lost someone close to them. Looking at the frail elderly woman huddled with a blanket over her legs on such a pleasant warm night, totally oblivious to the beauty around her—I didn’t begrudge her decision a bit. “It’s fine. She didn’t upset us.”

  I looked to Malcolm for guidance and he shook the older man’s hand, made a few small pleasantries then motioned to us to continue on.

  After we were far enough away that the gentle night breeze wouldn’t carry our words back to them, Malcolm murmured, “My mother’s people used to say the closer you got to the end of your physical life, the more in tune with the universe you became. Maybe they were right.”

  Silver snorted in our head but thankfully refrained from belittling his observation out loud. I gave a noncommittal grunt of acknowledgement.

  Internally I argued Malcolm’s case. “There could be something to that you know. I’m not against checking out our grandmother’s memories. Maybe it’s a clue?”

  Weavers had access to all of their ancestors’ memories in the Web and the information that could be garnered from family life experiences was often more than useful. All Weavers grew up with the expectation of having their memories preserved in the Web even if the body died and the soul went who knew where. Not many people knew that Silver and I could burn out a person’s memories from the Web if we so chose, as we had accidently discovered when we turned Calvin Harris’s brain to mush in self-defense.

  Silver pushed back, “Right and we’ll find a memory of a secret location with a vault that holds the answers to any question we ever wanted answered then suddenly the universe will make sense…dream on dreamer.”

  I knew the Silver that no one else would ever know, but sometimes her insistence on using sarcasm as a defense against life’s disappointments could wear a little thin. She knew me just as well so I failed to rise to the bait, responding to Malcolm and Silver with an audible, “We’ll see.”

  The familiar outline of our old living quarters materialized out of the night about two hundred yards in the distance. I decided to ask one more private question of Malcolm. “How is Kara? I want the real answer, not the one given to us by everyone else while we were away.”

  I stopped walking and reached our hand out to touch Malcolm’s elbow. When he turned, his eyes skated across ours as if they couldn’t find purchase.

  Eventually Malcolm gazed unfocused into the dark before he answered in a deep, serious tone. “She isn’t doing very well. Weavers need balance and she outright refuses to enter the Web at all. James has tried threats, bribery and pretty much anything else he could think of to convince her she won’t get lost again, but nothing works. It’s not easy for her either, to live in a compound of Weavers and be constantly reminded that she’s considered a cripple by everyone here.”

  I pursed our lips together in worry.

  Silver took over to say, “So where can we find her?”

  Malcolm sighed and rubbed the back of his thick neck with the hand that wasn’t occupied holding his gym bag. “She spends a lot of time in town, especially at night. Once the Council lifted the ban on fraternization with Outsiders, Kara started spending more and more time away from the compound. James tells me she doesn’t always come home. It could be her age and the lack of parents, though I’m not saying James hasn’t done his best for her, but she’s on a bit of a wild streak right now. I’ve checked up on her and Gerome has sent someone to keep an eye out when he can, but Kara’s a grown woman who has the right to make her own mistakes.”

  Silver harped, “That doesn’t answer my question, Big Man…where can we find her?”

  We didn’t really need to know her location to be able to trace her in the Web and ‘port, but it was always easier to know in advance what you might be dealing with before you materialized in the middle of it as our experience in the ring earlier testified.

  Countless Axsian’s had died over the centuries by accidently teleporting themselves into untenable situations. There had to be a dozen cautionary tales told like nursery rhymes to children on my host planet, warning against the dangers of blindly teleporting to new environments. If you were tracing another Weaver to a given location through the Web, their mind could be skimmed for a description of their surroundings but it wasn’t foolproof.

  Malcolm raised his eyebrows and I took over our mouth long enough to spout, “Silver is just worried. Thank you for telling us what’s really going on with Kara.” I wasn’t in charge of our face at the moment, but I could only imagine the pugnacious expression my twin had molded our features into.

  After a pause Malcolm continued, “She’s been waitressing at a pool hall called Hazards in a strip mall on the west side of Lubbock. Doesn’t seem like that bad of a place really for what it is. There are worse bars she could hang at.”

  He shrugged his massive shoulders and I noticed the wet spots on his thin cotton t-shirt had dried sometime during our walk. I could feel Silver’s itchy twitchy urge to find Kara’s presence in the Web and ‘port to her location right this second, but I put my foot down so to speak and mentally communicated in no uncertain terms that we wouldn’t be going after Kara half-cocked and irritated.

  Our movements were stiff and jerky as I let my sister pilot our body to blow off some steam. I knew she was just concerned about Kara, but most of the time if Silver was vexed over someone her emotions came across rather harshly which didn’t always help. Silver picked up on my ruminations and shot a justification at me.

  Silver’s thought was a sharp mental whip. “We didn’t save her life for her to become a barfly. What the crap is she doing with herself? I’m gonna kick her ass until she wakes up.”

  Malcolm had followed Silver’s lead forging ahead on our path to Maggie and Gerome’s small two bedroom house. Silence reigned between us until we arrived at the front door with its flaking dull blue paint, before we had mentally prepared ourselves for the impending reunion.

  I let Silver retain the reins and she nudged Malcolm’s arm as he raised it to knock, getting his attention long enough to wink and then engage our light field.

  His eyes widened and he mumbled under his breath, “I’m about tired of that little trick already, Dynamite.”

  The house was quiet with no noise of little feet on the wood floor or squeals of childish laughter. Maybe Reb and Ray were already in bed. I noticed that when Malcolm’s calloused knuckles hit the front door they did it softly as if he was terrified he might be too loud. The thought of Legos protruding from his rather formidable nostrils made a random laugh bubble out of our mouth.

  Silver mentally scolded, “Cass, hush your face or you’ll ruin the surprise!”

  From inside the small house came the sound of heavy footsteps on the floor that grew louder the closer they came to the front door until the porch light under the eaves turned on temporarily blinding us, unexpectedly ruining our night vision.

  Malcolm reached out an arm with faultless accuracy and placed it against our back just as Maggie opened the front door with an irritated caste to her features that I could still make out with my blurred, light bloated sight. Before my aunt could open her mouth Malcolm bulled
himself inside, pushing us along right next to him and Maggie backed out of the threshold to avoid being run over.

  She whisper-yelled at him, “Malcolm what the hell is going on? If you wake up the kids I’m not responsible for what I might do to you when I lose my mind. You don’t even want to know what kind of day they had at school!”

  The big man’s chest vibrated with a chuckle as he responded, “Melody told me. Zach’s hair will grow back—it wasn’t that bad.”

  Our eyes finally started adjusting to the light and Maggie’s expression in response to Malcolm’s comment was less than amused. Her face was just as I remembered it with kind, witty and mischievous soft brown eyes and a wide mouth that smiled more often than not, even though it was turned down in disapproval at the moment. Bright red frizzy hair stood out all around her head and she looked to have dropped some weight around the waist and hips, although no one could ever categorize her as less than full figured.

  When my aunt would have launched into another whispered tirade Malcolm cut her off.

  “Where’s Gerome? I’ve got a surprise for you both.”

  I took in the entryway with the familiar coat hooks on the half wall separating the front door area from the combined kitchen and dining room area. Children’s place mats with Sesame Street characters sat at two places on the shiny dark wood table with plastic booster seats in the corresponding chairs. The living room stretched off to the right with the same comfortable lived-on furniture.

  Maggie still had medical magazines strewn over the coffee table in front of the couch with the addition of children’s books scattered in as well now. One of the blankets draped over the back of the couch had Winnie the Pooh printed all over it and a wicker basket of toys sat shoved against the wall directly under the television.

  My aunt’s eyebrows drew together and she turned without comment to pad quietly down the short hall that led to the master bedroom at the back of the house. When Maggie walked back into view Gerome was at her heels with an alert, expectant expression on his face.